Oil wells (wellbores) are usually drilled with a drill string. The drill string includes a tubular member having a drilling assembly that includes a single drill bit at its bottom end. The drilling assembly may also include devices and sensors that provide information relating to a variety of parameters relating to the drilling operations (“drilling parameters”), behavior of the drilling assembly (“drilling assembly parameters”) and parameters relating to the formations penetrated by the wellbore (“formation parameters”). A drill bit and\or reamer attached to the bottom end of the drilling assembly is rotated by rotating the drill string from the drilling rig and/or by a drilling motor (also referred to as a “mud motor”) in the bottom hole assembly (“BHA”) to remove formation material to drill the wellbore. Many wellbores are drilled along non-vertical, contoured trajectories in what is often referred to as directional drilling. For example, a single wellbore may include one or more vertical sections, deviated sections and horizontal sections extending through differing types of rock formations.
Directional and horizontal drilling are often used to reach targets beneath adjacent formations, reduce the footprint of gas field development, increase the length of the “pay zone” in a wellbore, deliberately intersect fractures, construct relief wells, and install utility services beneath lands where excavation is impossible or extremely expensive. Directional drilling is often achieved using rotary steerable systems (“RSS”) or drilling motors, which are known in the art.